Elders hope apology not just hot air

The Rudd Government has set the stage to apologise to generations of displaced Aboriginal people in federal parliament tomorrow.

Members of the Coast’s Aboriginal community yesterday hoped the long-awaited apology could be the catalyst for advancing reconciliation between white and indigenous Australians to new levels.

But they said all tiers of government needed to take responsibility for their bureaucratic decisions of today as much as those made in the past if the apology was to effect a positive change.

Gubbi Gubbi elder Dr Eve Fesl believed the state government’s plans for the Traveston Dam flew in the face of what tomorrow’s apology was expected to convey.

“We’ve got a whole lot of things at the Mary River, our environment, our culture, sacred fish and it’s being proposed to put that dam wall there in the interests of people who don’t know our history, live in Brisbane and don’t care about us,” she said.

“I’m very hopeful that this is not just a few words floating into the air and are forgotten. There’s no harm in saying them as long as they are going to be the first step forward in to a better understanding of our people’s history.”

Dr Fesl believed that could only happen if the Australia’s history of Aboriginal oppression was better acknowledged and taught in schools and universities.

Nambour-based indigenous employment officer Anthony Beezley believed paying compensation to the families connected to the Stolen Generations had to be part of any meaningful reconciliation process.

“When two people share a time and place, like white and black people have done in Australia, and when one of those people are hurt, offended or upset by the other person then until there is that sorry in operation there can be no harmony...”

Even at the age of 27, Sunshine Coast Indigenous Network Group chair Toby Adams understands the painful legacy if the Stolen Generations.

His father was taken from his home in Quilpie to Cherbourg. Tomorrow morning he will join others from the Coast’s Aboriginal communities at the Nambour Police Citizens and Youth Club from 8am to watch the Rudd Government’s apology live.

“The perception out there is that it is in the past, but for people like myself it still affects me,” he said.